Major NLE Updates Coming at NAB? What Adobe and Avid Should Do to Improve Their Products

NAB is an exciting time of year for us filmmaking folk. While there are certainly some exciting things on the horizon in terms of cameras, rigs, lenses, lights, and what have you, I'm making an educated guess that this will be another significant year for NLE development, especially from post-production giants Avid and Adobe. Avid is likely to make the jump to version 7 of its flagship Media Composer, and if they follow their previously mentioned product cycle plan, Adobe will release version 6.5 of their popular Creative Suite. With much of the editing market still undecided between the three major players in post-production, these new updates could be a crucial stepping stone into the future for these companies.

First and foremost, I should mention that these are the two NLEs which I use regularly. Premiere has taken over as my go-to editing platform, and I use it for most, if not all, of my personal work and for smaller films. Avid, on the other hand, is generally my tool of choice on larger scale productions where media management tends to be a little more unruly, or if it's something I'm collaboratively editing with another person. So as someone who uses both of these on a consistent basis, I have a solid idea of what I would like to see out of the programs in future versions. So without further ado, let the speculation begin.

Avid

The folks at Avid have found themselves in a peculiar predicament as of late. They still dominate the high-end broadcast and film markets with their various software solutions -- as evidenced by their near sweep in several post-production categories at this year's Academy Awards. Despite this seeming success, however, Avid has been hurting financially for the past several years as their sales have continued to decline. This financial downward spiral seems to be boiling over for the company, seeing as how they recently postponed the release of their 2012 4th quarter earnings, something widely regarded by both the business and editing communities as a desperate move.

It seems to me that if Avid really is in desperate financial trouble, they're going to need to make a splash at NAB in order to stimulate new sales of their software solutions. For them to accomplish this, they are going to need to implement a major overhaul of the Media Composer interface and make it more accessible to younger editors, while simultaneously maintaining the level of professional precision that has made the application an industry workhorse for the past 20 years -- and they're going to have to do all of this while significantly lowering their price points.

Beyond these exterior changes to the software, Avid is going to have to heavily refine the way the software works internally. While they've subtly been doing this for the past 2 or 3 years with features such as AMA linking, OpenGL support, 3rd-party I/O options, and most importantly, 64-bit base code, Avid is still lagging well behind both Adobe and Apple in terms of performance and taking advantage of modern hardware. They need to follow in Adobe's and Apple's shoes with OpenCL support and background rendering. Beyond that, they need to bring resolution independence to both their project settings and to individual clips so that editors aren't restricted to the standard TV and film options that Avid currently offers.

However, despite the fact that a revamped version of Media Composer would likely get Avid's software division back on the track to profitability (especially if they could do the same with Pro Tools), whether or not the company has the cash or credit to cover the costs of the sure-to-be hefty research and development for such an overhaul is highly questionable. If the new version of Media Composer fails to gain traction in the broadcast and film communities, and Avid continues to lose money, it's likely that we could see some kind of company restructuring or even the sale of the company or its individual parts.

Adobe

Adobe, unlike Avid, seems to be thriving these days. After having snatched up many an editing professional after the Final Cut Pro X conundrum, and with the potential downfall of Avid, Adobe is now in a position to take the lead in the professional NLE market. In order to do this, however, they're also going to have to keep innovating with their suite of video post-production tools.

First and foremost, and I don't think I'm alone in this, it's time for Adobe to develop and embrace their own proprietary codec, a la ProRes or DNxHD. While the success of codec independence is part of what makes Premiere great, the performance of certain native codecs within the program is not what it could or should be. With a proprietary codec, Adobe would be able to completely optimize the performance of the software for that codec, as opposed to having a piece of software that deals with some codecs well, and others not nearly as much. Considering that many narrative-style films already transcode their raw camera data for both dallies and offline editing, it would be fantastic for Adobe to develop something to aid in that process. Sure, Cineform has been a decent 3rd party solution to this point, but it's time for Adobe to step up their game and cater to both independent folks as well as high-end professionals.

I would also like to see better integration of the Production Premium suite with its newest member, Adobe SpeedGrade. The acquisition of SpeedGrade from Iridas last year was an excellent move for Adobe in terms of putting together a comprehensive suite of tools for the video professional. However, the implementation and insertion of SpeedGrade into the suite has been clunky, to say the least. If Adobe can manage to integrate the program with the same dynamic linking technologies that have made it a breeze to shoot back and forth between Premiere, After Effects, Audition, and Encore, then they'll finally have a complete, integrated set of high-end tools for the video professional. As it stands now, it's just as easy to take a sequence from Premiere into Resolve as it is to take it into SpeedGrade. This needs to change if they want SpeedGrade to become a more viable option for the folks already using their products.

What do you guys think? What would you like to see out of the new versions of Media Composer and Premiere Pro? What would Avid have to do with Media Composer to keep it relevant and profitable? Conversely, what do you think Adobe would have to do to catapult Premiere Pro into industry dominance? Let us know in the comments.

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151 Comments

Speedgrade is wonderfully intuitive but about as stable as a drunk on roller skates.
I ditched it for Resolve lite, which is less intuitive but more powerful in my opinion.
Even with a high end PC, the transfer between Prem. pro and Speedgrade was abysmal.
While I stand by Adobe for Prem. Pro and After Effects, they're going to have to pull a miracle out of the bag to get me interested in Speedgrade again.

Agree on the Speedgrade thing. It needs brought up to speed with the rest of the suite immediately. I've tried using it and like Ben said, it's just terrible to get anything from Premiere into Speedgrade, Speedgrade crashes constantly, it's just not a stellar program at the moment. There's so much that could be done to improve it and its integration into the suite.

That's about how I feel as well. Resolve Lite really has taken over as my go-to color application, and that doesn't seem likely to change any time soon. However, if Adobe can implement dynamic linking and make it as seamless as it is with their other programs, they'll likely get quite a few more people staying exclusively within the Creative Suite.

This. SpeedGrade needs Adobeization I am all-in for Adobe these days. More often than ever, I've found myself ingesting and logging in Prelude, editing in Premiere, integrating graphics through AE/Photoshop through dynamic link, mixing in Audition, etc., etc., etc. What's missing is an equally smooth connection to SpeedGrade. I really like SpeedGrade, too... but the round-tripping is clunky right now. I'm sure Adobe will Adobe-ize it, but right now it feels like Apple Color in FCS.

I haven't learned Resolve Lite because, frankly, I want to stick with Adobe. If my hotkeys, GUI cues, etc. can all be the same when I have a quick turn around of projects at work... hey, I'll take that over almost anything. It's not fanboyism or loyalty or anything like that—it's about keeping things seamless, fast and easy to move between.

Even a few years ago, going between FCP or Avid and AE slowed me down, because it was difficult to shift my mind between hotkeys.

The realities of media nowadays it's better to be as software and platform agnostic as possible. Not everything advances at the same place. And then there are the odd missteps that throw everyone for a loop.

I agree. I am using Resolve for all my color needs right now, and the integration with Premiere (which when you think about it, there is none) is better than the integration with SpeedGrade. I would love to see SG brought into the DynamicLink family. Why can't I open a sequence in SG, grade and correct it, and have it linked back to Premiere so that I can dynamically color correct?

That would also solve another problem I have with color grading: it takes up a lot of space. I usually end up with 2-3 versions of each clip as it moves through the production workflow. With resolutions and file sizes continually increasing, Adobe needs to find a better way to non-destructively color correct. If they could use XMP data for color correction (similar to Lightroom) and have Premiere do the final render it would give us all greater edibility and less storage space occupied.

I'm and Adobe fan, but ultimately I will use whatever tool is best for the job. For color, right now that is DaVinci.

I would love to see them come out with a controller application of their own (Like controller+). Also one that would work with speed grade rather than spending thousands on a controller board. I completely agree with integrating some sort of dynamic link to speed grade

Most of my projects have extensive use of VFX and I don't use AE, I end up having to render plates clip per clip from my timeline to use in my 3d and compositing packages, then I have to re import back into my timeline the vfx rendered plates, I'd love Premiere to have it done in a easier way, just like The Foundry Hiero does.

Adobe missed the boat BIG TIME not buying out cineform. To let them be snapped up by go pro who lets face it, until now have no real use for the codec, was the biggest f-up this century. But maybe they have something else up their sleeve?

What they REALLY need to fix is the completely broken multicam workflow. Currently there is no way to flatten a multicam timeline or export it as a readable XML meaning you can't use it in speed grade, resolve or even after effects. FCP7 had this, avid has it as well but Premier Pro does not and neither does FCPX.

I'm agree with you the multicam is a bit weird if you want to use IT with after effect. It exports In after effect all the média and not only the part you sélect.

And I want something more efficient between the multi camera monitor and the timeline.

You have to click inside the multi monitor and click play because if you do In the timeline all the camera won't play. IT saves some power but lot of Time wasted to switch between the multi camera monitor and the timeline.

And is there a way to improve the performance In not using proxy media.

If Avid does decide to go in that direction, they'll really have to make sure that the new product is still appealing to current Avid editors. That's absolutely key, in my opinion. I'm sure both Avid and Adobe learned exactly what not to do with their software releases from Final Cut though. I'm also fairly confident that we won't see another fiasco like that again, especially not from a company like Avid which is wholeheartedly devoted to their professional users.

"If Avid does decide to go in that direction, they’ll really have to make sure that the new product is still appealing to current Avid editors." This is especially true, since Avid is one of the few platforms with people who have been sincerely using it for decades. There are some VERY old school editors using it, and they would not like any drastic change.

After effects shortcut customization. after effects is still locked into its archaic shortcuts. its not a stand alone product anymore, its very integrated. as such, it needs to be allowed to be customized to the same keys as other software, namely premiere.

premiere media broswer that understands the sub-folder organization that modern cameras do when they record video. as it stands, media broswer chokes up on all the other files / metadata that the camera records to the card.

functioning premiere media manager? literally the premiere one does not work at all. three hours of "copying your files over" and then error. useless.

one-click online / offline, proxy editing. its great that premiere can edit native avc, but 14 layers of avc? nope. Proxy editing should not be abandoned. make a way for us to easily toggle back and forth, online / offline, to maximize performance.

I say ditch speedgrade altogether. Integrate it right into premiere. the idea of "going back and forth" between edit system and color correction is outdated. find an intelligent way to do this in premiere. so you can go back and forth between editing and CC with ease.

I completely agree about the media browser not knowing what's going on with sub-folders and metadata. That absolutely drives me up a wall, and it would be great for Adobe to fix those issues as soon as possible.

Also, I like the idea of integrating Speedgrade into Premiere. It would very easily solve the integration issues, and it would push Premiere's already strong color tools even further. I like that idea a lot.

I wholeheartedly agree on the Project Manager. That actually needs to become a piece of usable software. For one, Adobe does not copy over any dynamically linked Ae Comps upon archiving. If you don't think about that, you can easily end up with major holes in your archived projects.

And, let's not forget the Titler. If they can only make it remember it's position. Plus - ability to export to .srt or .sub format would be great, so you can actually use it as a subtitling tool.

Being able to do a bit more in Premiere of what currently has to be done in AE would be v helpful, like simple compositing, masking, decent titling. These you can either do properly in AE which entails a lot of faff going back and forth (and this is sold as a virtue - "round tripping", yeah right), or do badly in PPro.

Similarly you can do all sorts of great stuff in AE, but forget about having scopes! And how about being able to play a comp contain one clip in real time? No - can't be done?

So you get two apps that are mostly brilliant with just enough crapness to each to make most jobs just that little bit annoying, so you go into it knowing it should be dead simple but that in reality it's going to be a pain in the arse sooner or later.

It's like having two cars. Both are perfect but one has no air con and the other has no heater. So for any journey over a certain duration you have to tow one behind the other and swap as the weather changes. Not the most elegant analogy, I know.

I too like the analogy and often find myself thinking the same thing... Smoke is taking this route on the higher end and I'd love to see AE and Premiere Pro merge, especially now that everyone buys the bundles or Creative Cloud subscription so there's really not much money to be made by selling them separately...

Using the car analogy, Premiere is a sports car, it's about speed and maneuverability. Get to your destination fast. After Effects is a rugged pick up, designed for heavy lifting.

If you merge the two, you get more of a mess. After Effects users can typically have multiple nested comps with dozens of layers each. Throw in effects, expressions and 3d layers, and you can really slow down even a fast machine.

I've seen how badly this can turn out in Final Cut Pro with some users who decided to do everything including effects in it.

I think it would be better for Adobe to create a unified plug in architecture, so that Premiere and After Effects uses essentially the same plug ins. It could be like how Final Cut X uses Motion for effects generation.

Merging the two will just become a more awkward beast that won't benefit anyone.

Smoke was designed with client interaction in mind, and was more hardware integrated like Flame.

Ditching SpeedGrade and having it integrated into Premiere is fine for those who work alone, but not in a collaborative environment.

Adobe needs to bring core features of SpeedGrade into Premiere, so do as much as possible in Premiere. For those times you need to go into Speedgrade, any color settings already applied will carry over.

It's time Adobe created a unified plugin architecture, so effects in Premiere, SpeedGrade and AE are the same.

If you want us to develop an intermediate codec or have better interoperation with existing ones, customizable keyboard shortcuts in After Effects, better native camera support, a better media manager, proxy editing, and better SpeedGrade integration, let us know: http://www.adobe.com/go/wish

Great article Robert, I find myself agreeing with your thoughts; I believe that Avid is a bit more dependent on what Adobe does, than it can rely on itself. If Avid doesn't do an overhaul and stays true to its current workings, then eventually it might fade, as more Adobe users find their way into the industry. Lets face it, Avid works and plays like a 10 year old software. However, if they do decide to have a makeover, then a lot of people who love Avid will be pissed about the change (Some people have a problem with technological advancement in this industry).

So I believe that if Adobe really pushes themselves forward to show why they can be the most high-end professional tool for editing - Both in aggressive marketing and in tech, then Avid may be in deep trouble.

avid: total agreement. it has improved a lot, but still seems archaic in many respects.

adobe: huh? you ask for ANOTHER codec? i get what you are saying re. NLE + preferred codec working together to increase speed, but it would have to be the mother of all codecs to have me welcome yet another to the fold.
speedgrade v. resolve: yes to the drunken skater, yes resolve kills, yes improve the roundtripping, yes, yes.

I can't believe you're recommending that Adobe comes up with a proprietary codec! That is exactly what we don't want them to do! I am happy that Adobe's recent formats have most been focused on being open source. If they could come up with an open source codec that beats ProRes 4444, I'd be much more excited about that.

I'd like to see Adobe announce OpenCL for AMD hardware outside of the two MBP models it supports. I have a Windows 7 workstation that I use CS6 on, right now it has an AMD graphics card so no OpenCL in my Mercury Playback Engine, If Adobe and AMD don't come up with something my new graphics card will be Nvidia.

I use adobe and It's good but the performance are not enough... I've got a gtx 680 and It's almost never use... You still have to do lot of render... Render In background with the graphic card would be great like fcpx? But something which doesn't slow down the Pc.

I would like to see all the effect with gpu accélération. Some effect like stabilization don't use all the core and take a while...

So I want more speeeeeedddd.

I still use color correction inside Pp because I don't like the workflow with speedgrade so yes a big improvment on this part would je great.

I know it's not a priority for everyone, but some hotkey advances with Adobe Prelude would be killer for me. I love how they built it to be keyboard driven for the sake of speed, but when transcribing, I need a handful of new hotkeys to make it even faster.

Oh, and Adobe needs to not kill off support for the BMD camera codec. That camera might seriously take off in the next few years, and PP would be left behind due to just not supporting a codec. That would be a huge bummer for them.

It's supported over many of our products, and you can use it right now in SpeedGrade, After Effects, and more if RAW plug-ins are installed. It is not a great codec to edit with in Premiere Pro, however. You would need some very beefy hardware to deal with files like that in editorial, however, feel free to make your request: http://www.adobe.com/go/wish

There's a growing but silent base of pros, self included, who have really gotten to like what FCP X has to offer. I'd be happy to switch to Premiere (mostly for the realtime AE functionality) if it had something resembling the dynamic timeline or the intuitive event/asset management workflow of X.

There are definitely quite a few folks out there who love the features in FCPX, and it's not a stretch to say that Adobe is watching very carefully. My guess is that some of those revolutionary features (or something very close to them) will show up in CS7. As much as I was irritated by FCPX to begin with, I really do think that it will help facilitate the pushing of our NLE's into a completely new direction. And that's a great thing, in my opinion.

Agreed. X has come a long way since that messy 10.0.0 release. And if its successful evolution pushes Adobe and Avid to finally innovate with their admittedly ancient NLE platforms, then it's beneficial all-around.

I want Creative Cloud to offer render farm solutions for Ae. Upload your project file + footage to the cloud and download a rendered version a few hours later, w/o need to hog resources on your local system. But that would require CC space to grow beyond the 20GB they currently offer. More like 1Tb-ish for video Pros.

Since so many in the industry currently depend on Quicktime and ProRes, since I'm on PC, I want to be able to write to that format (not just read it). Or, indeed, a new codec altogether. The arrival of 4K might just be their way in. On the other hand, I want PPro to continue to handle all codecs, because that's one of it's key advantages. Not having to transcode is a huge time and disc space saver.

Furthermore, I want PPro and its effects to be agnostic to dimensions of either footage or sequences. Right now, Warp Stabilizer requires the footage to match the sequence, which is cumbersome if you're creating a film aspect ratio (2.35 to 1) sequence with 1080p footage. Currently, once created, you can't change the dimensions of a given sequence.

Better SpeedGrade integration - agreed. Have not had a serious look at the programme.

Also, I want better round tripping between Audition and PPro. Create a mix in Audition and be able to toggle back and forth, just like the brilliance between Ae and PPro.

I've actually had a ton of success going back and forth between Premiere and Audition. You can right click on your piece of audio, send it to Audition, make your changes, then hit save. The audio is automatically replaced and updated in your timeline. It's never failed me once.

I would be thrilled, however, if they could incorporate some kind of batch processing for audio within Audition, because in the past I've had to send each individual clip to Audition, apply some presets (generally noise reduction, EQ, that kind of thing) and send them individually to Premiere. If I could just select all of the sound files, then select my desired presets and let it go, that would be a magnificent time saver.

You can kind of do that by recording a favorite for the settings that you want. You still have to send each clip from PP to Audition, but once there you can batch process all the clips with your favorite, then save all. Head back to Premiere and voila! your audio is golden.

Sure you can roundtrip between PPro and Au, but it's not dynamic. Every time you click the Open in Audition feature, a new clip is created. I want to have just a single link open which can be instantly updated just like between PPro and Ae.

I would like to see Prelude use CUDA for better previewing of AVCHD and also transcode direct into a premiere pro project that acts like Log and Transfer. SpeedGrade needs external monitoring to be taken seriously as a grading tool. Prelude is a great application that I don't think people use very often or understand fully what it can do.

I haven't been able to work with Prelude. I much preferred OnLocation. I found it very easy to log and organize footage, but I haven't been able to grasp Prelude yet. Any tips for finding an easy workflow?

I normally use PP and AE, but have been playing with a relatively new piece of software called Hitfilm Ultimate. While still a little on the primitive side, the thought behind it is more like Smoke. It is a NLE that also has the ability to create composite shots and integrate them into the main timeline AND play them back in real time. It looks like its going to take some time for it to mature, but the potential is there.

Uh... " a breeze to shoot back and forth between Premiere, After Effects". Well, you can go easily from P to AE, but getting back? You'll just get one solid file, certainly not the project you had before.

Yeah the blade tool should snap ala FCP7. Super annoying. You should also be able to sort clips by name. I can't tell you how many times I've imported files and then had to delete them because they were in reverse chronological order or worse not in any sort of order. I hate that you can't have a real time monitor of multicam on a second monitor and does hitting that record button really need to be necessary ?

Brilliant idea, an industry standard alternative to ProRes and DNxHD will be great! Cineform, while great, isn't widely adopted. It's maddening not being able to use ProRes on both Mac & PC -it's the year 2013 and we're still having issues like this?? Yes, I know it's possible encode Prores on PC if you try hard enough, but it's not nearly as easy as it should be. It'll be even better if Adobe creates an open industry standard rather than a proprietary one. Similar to what they've done with camera raw formats and the DNG format. They certainly have the influence to encourage wide spread adoption, especially if implemented well.

To add a bit, our studio is Mac based and we archive our projects as a ProRes 4444 master. However, it will be nice to be able to have a similar format that isn't platform specific, has long term longevity, has industry wide adoption, and doesn't require a license to use!

The single, most important feature editors REALLY need for Premiere, is the ability to remap the same shortcut across various keys or combinations. It's EXTREMELY irritating. They have to start thinking about ergonomics!! I usually edit and move around an editing program with a single hand on the keyboard, without ever having to reach for the mouse. Avid can do it, so can FCP (don't know about X). What's the point of being able to remap keys, if they're not flexible about it. Just plain stupid and inefficient. Also, they need to add a keyboard design when mapping the keys (in conjuction with the clunky text interface). I mean, it's all good once you've designed your new remapped keyboard, but doing so is BY NO MEANS as fast as it is with Avid or FCP.

I couldn't agree with this more. It's frustrating as hell trying to map keys in Premiere, and I've had to do it a bunch of times because, for some reason, it's insanely difficult to get different versions of the program on different machines to read the .kys file that stores your keyboard settings. It's one of those things that's so easy in both Avid and Final Cut too, so it doesn't make sense that it's such a pain in Premiere.

Digital noise reduction without having to use a third party plugin would be great, I think it is something very essential and always wander why it is not part of the standard package (and not requested more frequently...)

And one more thing adobe. Why do I have to add my video card to a text file to get pp to support open cl. It's annoying that the software can support a whole mess of cards and all it takes is adding 10 stinking characters to a text file to unlock a better rendering experience. C'mon Adobe.

I agree, Avid is not an easy piece of software to learn, and it requires a completely different frame of mind than the other NLE's, but once you get into it, it's probably the fastest, most precise editing software out there.

I think that's the problem. Avid does some things very well like the Composer Window, but I find my self having to go through additional steps to getting done when other NLEs don't require this.

I'll put in the time because the market where I work uses it, but I see many students choosing PP over Avid. Like I said before, if Avid wants wider adoption independent users like me, they really need to step up their customer support. When something goes wrong with the software, it's really a pain to get the help you need.

I don't agree with the assertion that Adobe needs a proprietary codec... part of the reason the Premiere Pro CS6 and After Effects utilize hardware playback so well is that they use the native video element from the two Operating Systems. (MS-DV playback on Windows) and (Quicktime MOV on Mac)... I have my own custom intermediary editing settings that use the native support for P2 playback for HD footage... which makes DSLR footage fast when you have the recommended nvidia hardware. Building an Editing system around a proprietary codecs would make P.Pro less versatile... besides why waste money on a proprietary codec when they could us On2 VP8 from Google for Free?

What about some proper support for raw DNG files? We're already seeing the beginning of a new era of raw availability with the BMCC, D16 and the Kinefinity offerings yet the process of getting DNGs into Premiere (despite being their own codec) or just about any NLE is far more time-consuming and processor-intensive than it should be. Surely this can't be a difficult fix?

1. Proxy editing a la After Effects - In AE we can go in and select low-res files (even stills) for each clip. But there's no way to do anything like that in Premiere. Well, ok, you can trick Adobe with multiple folders and renaming folder-names. But it's not exactly intuitive.

2. A real noise-reduction tool without any need for third party solutions. One of the biggest reasons for me to not get into speedgrade is that I usually need to denoise footage. I do this with Neat in AE, and while there I see very little reason to not slap on Colorista II while I'm at it. And speedgrade just feels superflous. I would absolutely LOVE it if prelude could use Neat or the like so I can actually use it to batch-process the files like I want to.

3. EDL-viewer in AE. Just to watch the comp in it's context without having to switch and dynamic link.

4. File effects - With this I mean effects that I can apply on files without having them tied to a single sequence.

1. Proxy - I think this will only increase in need as RAW files become more common for editors. I certainly second this idea.

2. This is an interesting idea I haven't considered. I suppose with all the DSLR/large sensor cameras out there, and people's increased desire to shoot in low-light, this is something that would be good. I like this idea. It would be great if Adobe just bought out an already-functioning option (like Neat) instead of building there own, kind of like they did with Automatic Duck for CS6. I would also love if Prelude did something like this as a batch process... and while we're dreaming, it would be cool if they also snatched up FilmConvert and gave you the option to apply that in Prelude.

I'd like to see the addition of handles to dynamic linked videos being sent to AE. Having to pull the shot out of the timeline to add handles to facilitate a cross fade is very irritating.

Also, and this just might be me, but have the cursor not try to be so freaking helpful all the time. Leads to having to zoom in multiple times just to select an effect is very time consuming. They're trying to get it to do too much simultaneously and it often leads to it doing none of it well.

Regarding workflow with Dynamic Link: Fair enough. You do need to add handles but only if you are creating a transition in and/or out of the dynamic link comp. The same is true for nested sequences. I'm sorry you're annoyed by the tools, at the proper zoom level, they behave better. Please make your feature requests, though: http://www.adobe.com/go/wish

This article hits Avid pretty hard and shouldn't. Avid has stood by its users since the start. I don't think they need to mess around with the interface. A lot of complaints people have with Premiere are not even issues in Avid. And Avid won't go away. With FCP gone, there are more licenses for Avid than before. Why? It'll run on PCS and Macs, a boon for schools and small production houses.

As an 10-year Avid user and former user of Premiere and FCP, I prefer the way Avid is now. I think that Avid is the best at rendering on the fly than the other 2 products, especially Adobe. Adobe is trying to push a realtime, on-the-flying paradigm which is the wrong way to go, burdening the systems.

Codecs in cameras are going to keep changing; it only makes sense to transcode into the editing system's codec; to rely on AMA is a recipe for disaster as well as problems throughout the edit. What happens when RAW truly hits? Expecting a perfect RAW workflow from camera-to-timeline-to-output will take some time until computer catch up. History is repeating itself: the Red Rocket is the current Adrenaline box.

Expecting that type of workflow now with all these codecs is ludicrous. How hard it is really to transcode into the Avid codec and edit? Premiere is a joke because it doesn't do this. But it does plug into After Effects really well.

Until the BMCC and DBolex appear, challenging the workflow of every editing system, we'll never really know what the future holds. The next version of the Mac Pro will be a bigger indication of performance we can expect moving forward.

Believe me, I actually really love how Avid is set up, and I love how it works, but the fact that they're in some serious financial trouble in regards to their software department is undeniable at this point. I only threw an opinion out there to see what other people thought on the matter.

Robert, Avid makes most of their revenue from hardware, not software. I doubt much of anything in Media Composer will change that. I've even read some analysts say the MC price drops are not only pointless, but hurting their revenue further. They need to drive Isis sales for example and, apparently, it's not.

As a side note, I believe Adobe may have said they're dropping .5 upgrades. I don't doubt another big upgrade but I think it'll be v7.

I suspect FCPX will have a major update around NAB.

Don't underestimate EditShare who will be previewing Lightworks for Mac. My hunch is that their long term goal is to position Lightworks and EditShare as a competitor to Avid's MC/Isis. I imagine having a free NLE that at one time held some measure of "Hollywood" support, getting it into more hands than MC, is part of their marketing and market share objective.

If some advancements were made to integrate AE and Premeire in a greater way - that would get me excited.

That said, in looking forward as a one-man-band for much of my work - I'm very hooked into Adobe. Even if Avid came out with a glorious update to their interface (upon which I have edited hundreds of TV programs) - I wouldn't make the jump. I'm not a fan of the Avid workflow. Adobe makes more sense to my brain. Yes Avid works well for many, but I always found it a chore rather than a pleasure to use. But, since I was offline editing for a Symphony suite, I had no ther option.

With the introduction of the Creative Cloud, I would be hard pressed to jump ship to another application, when for my 50 bucks or so a month, I can always have Adobe's latest. Creative Cloud is genius - it stops many pirates and gets people hooked into the upgrades, guarantees Adobe a steady income, is less expensive for the production companies etc. -Adobe may not be in the top level editing houses, but they have continued to innovate, improve and are now building a larger user base with steady cash flow coming in - I suspect they'll continue jumping ahead. We do, however need Avid and FCP to stick around as competition spurs innovation.

Is anyone else intensely annoyed by the lack of pitch correction when fastforwarding (with JKL) in Premiere? I spend a lot of time listening to interviews at double-speed in FCP 7, and now that I've just switched to Premiere for a project, the chipmunk voices are really getting to me... Is there a plugin to deal with this? (And I do know about Shift-L to get smaller increments of speed increase, but that still isn't satisfying to me.) I love Premiere in many ways, but this is something I'm not sure I'll ever get used to.

Hi Ben, regarding pitch, it's exactly how Media Composer treats it. However, if you want FCP style pitch as you JKL, you can make a feature request: http://www.adobe.com/go/wish That said, I use the Shift key and tap J or L 4 or 5 times to hear FCP style pitch. You can also slow down the speed by pressing Shift J 3-6 times when going forward or Shift L 3-6 times when moving backwards. Kind of like a variable shuttle.

Adobe has been promising Speedgrade Mac support for output to a calibrated monitors since NAB 2012.
It never happened despite acknowledging that such was recognized as a very important need.
Judging grading on a calibrated monitor is a BASIC requirement of grading. But here we are a year later and no solution despite the promises.
Moved on to Resolve. Too slow a response from Adobe.
Love the rest of the Suite though - CS6 is fabulous. Said goodbye to FCP7 long ago.

i love adobe since i got my first PC, in my opinion if Adobe upgrade their software would be nice if an online editing software (may be like wirecast - w/wo streaming capable) for online editing use(directly to Adobe premiere timeline just like Media 100). this is really helpful for some users....i thinks its better if the company got billion users event they are small fish...compare to the only one whale

Being a small freelancer that has bought into the creative cloud, I can say that adobe will be getting my dollars for a long time to come. What I would really like to see are a few more after effects features come into premiere such as 3d camera tracking or make the dynamic link a little easier to use. I feel that with the dynamic link, you could really have a complete hybrid program that allows you to simply switch workspaces to add effects to a premiere timeline.
The number one thing I feel is lacking is an effective colour correction solution. The three way colour corrector is improved, but the secondaries still suck. I find that I am usually building several layers with masks, or eventually going to AE to do simple colour work. An interface such as colorista would put me in absolute colour heaven with Adobe.

I can't find the website now, but I remember looking up how much of Avid's profits come from Media Composer/Symphony. It's about a third. Yes these are important products, but it's not their only source of revenue. ProTools is still killing it and every news division I know has an Interplay/ISIS. Avid doesn't have the money/engineers that Adobe and Apple do. Major rewrites take loads of time and money. But because they are now at 64bit you will see a lot of small changes that make a big difference. I would expect them to continue to "steal code" from Protools (ala SmartTool) and continue to give us audio improvements. They know they are the only solution for multiuser and 3D, so they may double down on that. They know Symphony's color corrector needs an update, but with limited resources you might see more integration with Baselight.

One of the reasons and there are many, that Ileft AVID and moved to PP CS6 is the Ken Burns effect in avid took so many clicks. Premiere Pro is super simple to move a picture or even multiple video clips with just a couple of clicks.
I do wish that premiere pro would indicate end of clip in the record monitor for those of us that prefer editing with keyboard short cuts as apposed to dragging and dropping.
Final Cut and Avid both let you know when you are at the end of a clip or at the beginning of a new one.

I gotta say, major props to Adobe for being involved with forums, including the comments here. I've been impressed with how active staff are on CreativeCow, and of course on the Adobe forums... but commenting here and replying to a lot of these gripes/requests definitely won them some points from me.

How great is it that a representative from Adobe is taking the time to address our concerns here? While I don't expect all of our issues to be solved overnight, and I realize they probably have a huge list of things to fix/improve, it's cool to see that at least one of these companies is paying attention.

Since jumping ship from FCP7 the one thing I miss is the simple ability to arrange the imported clips from my DSLR in chronological order. I know there is a work around the convenienceof the 'Arrange' option would be great.

I'm not an editor, but I run a small production devision for start up company, and according to my editing team, the only thing that stops us from switching to Premeire is that it currently doesn't have the ability to open more than one project at a time. This still a restriction for the platform?

You can't have more than one project open, but you can import one project (or just selected sequences from it) into another. That should take care of most needs for working on several projects at once? I do it often.

I would definitely NOT like to see Adobe develop a proprietary codec. I remember the difficulty I had trying to work on footage with my Windows system that had been touched by a Mac (stupid Apple Intermediate Codec!). The last thing we need is footage locked in to an application and unusable without it.

I would REALLY love it if Adobe could fix whatever it is in Premiere Pro that produces "End of File" errors in clips once they get to Encore. Premiere Pro is great, I love it and am certainly going to keep working with it but these End of File errors are killing me. For the love of all that is holey could Adobe PLEASE fix them. They occur in Encore for no adequately explained reason due to something that is put into the clips that are exported from Premiere Pro. Encore does not identify which clip, let alone where in the clip, the error occurs so that you can go back to Premier Pro and fix it. I literally spend days just trying to find which clip is producing the error in Encore, days that I could have spent editing, so I can fix the problem and get the end product out to customers. In every forum dealing with Adobe software there are people trying to find solutions to the problem that apparently has been around since CS2. There are two problems going on I suspect, which is what makes it difficult, the fact that Encore is so sensitive that it has this problem with clips out of Premier Pro even though EVERYTHING else can play them, and the fact that something in Premiere Pro is so incompatible with how Encore needs things to be that these errors appear in the files in the first place.

Hopefully this responds correctly, pressing reply just took me to the "Leave a comment" window. To answer your question Jarle, I work with exported files from Premiere Pro rather than dynamically linking because for several reasons:
1) There is two of us working on the editing at once, one of us works on the videos in Premiere Pro, exports them and the other then authors the DVDs with those clips while the first is editing the next DVD worth of clips; we are parallel processing in other words
2) We have also specialised in the software, I am our Encore specialist and my wife is our Premier Pro specialist - so we tend to divide our labour that way rather than both working on separate discs at once
3) One of our computers is a lot more powerful (and therefore faster) than the other, so we aim to do the rendering step on that computer

If Avid can revisit a the The dv Express pro option with Media composer offering a functional entry level 1080 HD editing @ $1200.00 mark. With the option to upgrade features as you need them like a modular Lego made to order. That way people can get in with Avid when they are just starting out and upgrade as they need too or can afford along the way.

I have been editing with PP since the CS4 version and am now using CS6. At this point I would not consider using anything else as I have my workflow nailed down and it functions nearly seamlessly especially between PS, AE and Encore despite the occasional hiccup. Now to Speedgrade, what a great tool for color grading, at least I was amazed, however taking the results of it and getting it back into PP is so painful that I can not really integrate it into my present workflow without adding a lot of additional time and HDD space, which is most unfortunate really. It would be a great boon if the program was able to work within PP like a plug-in without all the hassles. To me it was released too early and not integrated very well like AE, or especially PS. I guess I should be writing this to Adobe, whose tutorials make it seem so easy but it has not been so in my experience. Maybe I should consider something from Red Giant...

Pr needs to up the game when it comes to I/O. I have a Black Magic Studio Pro and have endless preview quality problems. This was reported when CS6 came out and nothing has been done (and adobe admitted that they knew about the issue). I also agree that speedgrade needs to be more user friendly, It takes for ever to work on a big project..

I second that. That needs to change pronto! There's no good excuse for Premiere not to support DNG sequences. I would also like to be able to move in and out of camera RAW with image sequences on the timeline. Just like you can do with Red footage. In my opinion there's no better CC software and I'd like to be able to use it in a flexible manner. Also in AE.

Interesting article. As someone who has recently moved to AVID, it seems to be in a bit of a mess. There seems to be various ways to do simple tasks which obviously was implemented one way and overhauled but the old infrastructure not removed. This makes things very confusing for someone new coming into use a bit of software where there is no obvious right way to manage assets and export video. PP however really seem to have nailed it as late.

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